Software keeps track of cables onboard

BAE Systems has used BSOFTB's Icepic cable management solution since July 1996 to help cable routing and management in the design of surface ships and submarines.

BAE Systems is the world's largest defence company, with annual sales of GBP 12 billion and more than 100,000 employees worldwide.

The Marine business unit is the largest UK shipbuilding group, and comprises three shipyards at Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, and Scotstoun and Govan, both in Glasgow.

On the LPD (landing platform dock) assault ship, one of the surface ships built at Barrow, there are 36,000 cables linking 28,000 devices, with a total cable distance of 636,000m - enough to cross the English Channel more than 18 times.

BAE Systems needed to find the optimal route for these cables and manage them through the entire cabling process - working in an environment where practically every design is different, and where construction and installation work starts concurrently before the design is finished.

BAE Systems has used BSOFTB's Icepic cable management solution since July 1996 to help cable routing and management in the design of surface ships and submarines.

Icepic is a complete cable management system, which provides a fast, cost-effective and efficient way to manage cabling on major engineering projects.

Based on an Oracle database, the tool uses sophisticated algorithms to automatically find the shortest route between two points.

BAE use most of Icepic's modules, including scheduling, cable routing, change control, terminations and reporting.

Steve Rushton, Principal Engineer, comments: "We use Icepic from concept through to installation.

We use it to define routes, together with PTC's Cadds5 CAD system, and to determine which route each cable is assigned to".

At the start of the process, BAE used Icepic's autorouting features to get a "heads-up" on the design and to establish feasibility.

The company designs and sizes cable runs manually, and then proves the routes automatically, using data imported from its CAD system.

Steve Brogden, Senior Engineer, says, "Although importing the data can be relatively time-consuming, it is very straightforward".

BAE evaluated Icepic against a competitor product on several criteria.

"A key factor was that BSOFTB was very open to developing the tool to fit our requirements", says Dave Cleasby Principal Engineer.

"Like any relationship the one with BSOFTB has had its ups and downs and we encountered some difficulties with integration into our processes.

However, through the close working relationship with BSOFTB these initial problems have been mainly overcome and it is a continuous exercise to improve processes".

According to Campbell, at Scotstoun there were two main factors in choosing Icepic: "The front-end is user-friendly, and easy to understand.

Also, we were impressed by BSOFTB's user support - they were able to respond well to change requests".

BAE uses Icepic to share data between its sites, and with subcontractors such as Rolls-Royce Associates.

The subcontractors write data into the Icepic database which BAE can then read directly.

"Icepic has enabled real-time data sharing and concurrent working which has improved visibility across all parties.

This helps to resolve design issues faster and more efficiently", comments Brogden.

The main benefits found by BAE have been time savings through report building, thus improving project management.

According to Cleasby: "For an isolated task such as routing a cable from the engine room to the control room on a submarine, it might have taken us a day when we worked manually.

With Icepic, this might take on average half an hour or less".

"With Icepic, we can do reports instantly", says Rushton.

"Management can obtain a live data report, and it's always accurate".

Cleasby adds: "The manual methods we used for cable routing before Icepic were very labour intensive and time-consuming.

Because of Icepic, routing is now quicker and has been simplified due to knowledge-based rule checking".

Icepic allows BAE to get new users up and working quickly.

Says Brogden: "Our skilled engineers go on a 1.5 day training course, and can then start work on cable routing immediately.

The new users are able to do everything - in the past, a lot more experience and knowledge would be required".

BAE has now established a core software suite for cable management.

This is constantly reviewed to ensure its effectiveness in supporting the electrical process.

As a result, BSOFTB recently developed additional production and installation functionality for Icepic.

This was based around an obsolete in-house BAE application, but has been enhanced within Icepic to provide a more integrated approach to cabling management in the production phase.

The collaboration between BSOFTB and BAE has, ultimately, been a successful one because of their mutual commitment to improve both the software technology and the business processes.

As Dave Cleasby puts it: "BAE Systems Marine and BSOFTB have, through association, gained much valuable experience in understanding how software, such as Icepic, should and should not be employed to support and enhance the electrical design process in complex naval vessels.

We have jointly created a platform of software, and an understanding of that software, from which we can develop our processes to support future electrical strategy.

Although we still have work to do, we are a long way ahead of where we were before embarking on this collaboration - and we hope it will continue".

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